fc\0&' 


Sc  l >ade  r* 


“  A  National  Hero.” 


SERMON 


REV.  DOREMUS  SCUDDER. 


STATUE  OF  MARCUS  WfUTMA^, 


In  the  Witherspoon  Building,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Columbia  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/nationalherosermOOscud 


“  A  National  Hero.” 


SERMON 

BY 

REV.  DOREMUS  SCUDDER, 

AT  THE 

plf^ST  CONGREGATIONAL*  CHURCH, 

WOBURN,  MASS.. 

Sunday,  November  twenty-eighth,  1897”, 


10.30  A.  M. 


To  the  Pastor  of  the  First  Cong’l  Church,  Woburn,  Mass, 
Dear  Brother: 

We  listened  on  Sunday  last  with  intense  interest  to  your 
eloquent  and  inspiring  tribute  to  the  memory  of  one  of  the  most  distin¬ 
guished  of  America’s  patriots  and  heroes,  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman. 

For  ourselves  and  many  others,  we  hereby  express  the  earnest 
desire  that  an  address,  so  admirable,  may  be  published  and  remain  for 
the  encouragement  of  the  lovers  of  their  country  and  for  the  inspiration 
of  the  devoted  servants  of  the  Master.  We  therefore  respectfully  ask 
for  a  copy  of  this  discourse  for  publication. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Edward  E.  Thompson, 

Abijah  Thompson, 

Arthur  B.  Wyman, 

Everett  P.  Fox, 

Alvah  Buckman, 

C.  E.  Richardson, 

O.  F.  Bryant, 

J.  G.  Pollard, 

November  29,  1897.  Deacons  of  the  First  Cong’l  Church. 


December  4,  1897. 

Messrs.  Edward  E.  Thompson,  Abijah  Thompson,  Arthur  B.  Wyman, 
Everett  P.  Fox,  Alvah  Buckman,  C.  E.  Richardson,  O.  F. 
Bryant  and  J.  G.  Pollard,  Deacons  of  the  First  Church,  Woburn, 
Mass. 

Dear  Brethren : 

Your  letter  brings  one  more  evidence  of  your  constant  kind  * 
ness  and  generous  appreciation,  which  always  exceed  my  deserts,  and 
for  which  I  cannot  sufficiently  thank  you.  No  one  can  be  as  conscious 
as  I  how  inadequate  to  the  memory  of  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman  is  the 
short  sketch  given  last  Sunday.  But  if  it  moved  you,  it  may  move 
others,  and  with  the  hope  that  it  may  prove  helpful  in  leading  some  to 
study  the  noble  lives  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Whitman  and  to  add  their  con¬ 
tribution  to  the  endowment  of  the  college  at  Walla  Walla,  I  gladly 
place  the  manuscript  in  your  hands  to  do  with  as  may  seem  best. 

Faithfully  your  minister, 


DOREMUS  SCUDDER. 


A  NATIONAL  HERO.* 


(ien.  6:  4.  There  were  giants  in  the  earth  in  those  days. 

Fifty-four  years  ago  a  plain  man  of  few  words  but 
of  actions  that  were  golden,  whose  name  some  day 
will  stand  close  to  those  of  Washington  and  Lincoln 
in  the  history  of  the  United  States,  entered  the  offices 
of  the  American  Board  in  Boston  to  be  sharply 
reproved  for  leaving  his  mission  field  to  do  the  grand¬ 
est  single  deed  which  this  country  has  ever  known. 
For  decades  his  name  and  his  deed  slept  in  oblivion, 
but  God  never  forgets  his  own.  At  New  Haven  last 
month,  the  largest  number  of  corporate  members  ever 
assembled  in  the  history  of  the  Board,  unanimously 
called  upon  every  church  in  its  constituency  to  set 
apart  Sunday,  November  28,  for  the  solemn  recognition 
of  the  services  of  this  man  to  the  Board  and  to  his 
country,  and  decreed  that  on  the  50th  anniversary  of 
his  death,  which  will  fall  tomorrow,  both  at  Boston 
the  home  of  the  society  and  at  Washington  the  capital 
of  the  nation,  memorial  services  in  his  honor  be  held 
and  a  movement  be  inaugurated  to  erect  a  suitable 
monument  to  commemorate  his  life.  In  loyal  response 

*  This  sermon  was  preached  on  the  morning  of  Nov.  28,  1897. 
In  it  free  use  was  made  of  the  material  embodied  in  that  excellent 
book,  “How  Marcus  Whitman  saved  Oregon.” 


4 


to  this  summons  our  First  Church,  whose  heart  has 
always  beat  in  time  both  to  the  most  exalted  patriotism 
and  to  the  missionary  command  of  Jesus  Christ, 
dedicates  this  morning  hour  to  the  memory  of  Dr. 
Marcus  Whitman. 

In  a  true  sense  every  man  is  sui generis  both  in 
his  inner  nature  and  in  his  outward  manifestation. 
But  there  are  some  characters  so  distinctive  that  like 
the  Alpine  giant  Matterhorn  they  stand  out  from  the 
mass  of  dissimilar  individuals  as  though  they  belonged 
to  a  different  class.  Washington  was  great  in  the 
very  absence  of  such  uniqueness.  Dike  Monte  Rosa, 
the  perfect  snow  mountain,  with  her  rounded  dome 
which  reaches  so  far  above  her  sisters  that  old  Sol 
lovingly  imprints  on  her  brow  his  rosy  kiss  while  her 
companions  stand  lowly  beside  her  in  reverential 
shadow,  the  Father  of  His  Country  towers  above  his 
fellow  citizens  in  the  symmetry,  the  purity  and  the 
loftiness  of  his  character.  But  Dincoln  is  your  true 
Matterhorn,  far  more  impressive,  wondrously  massive, 
unduplicated  and  unduplicable.  And  in  this  same 
category  we  must  place  Marcus  Whitman,  a  strange 
silent  being,  but  unspeakably  precious  to  the  lover  of 
real  men. 

It  was  well  for  our  land,  now  the  home  of  fabulous 
wealth,  where  God  has  undertaken  to  solve  the  prob¬ 
lem,  how  carve  moneyed  men  into  self-denying  Chris¬ 
tians,  the  eighteen-hundred-year-old  question,  how 


5 


can  a  rich  mail  be  saved,  that  the  Father  of  this 
country  should  have  been  one  of  the  largest  property 
owners  of  his  day.  It  was  also  singularly  fitting  that 
the  emancipator  of  enslaved  laborers  should  himself 
have  risen  from  the  dead  level  of  hard  manual  toil. 
But  a  third  hero  was  demanded.  For  it  was  impos¬ 
sible  that  the  land  of  the  Pilgrims  whose  typical  genius 
for  the  first  three  hundred  years  after  its  discovery 
was  that  man  of  little  substance  but  great  resources, 
that  conqueror  of  adverse  conditions,  that  glorifier  of 
brain  over  brawn,  that  creature  of  indomitable  pluck 
and  endless  endurance,  the  Pioneer,  should  have  his 
national  exemplar.  The  American  Pilgrim  was  God’s 
man,  and  for  God  he  went  forth  from  England.  Not 
like  the  hordes  that  come  to  us  today,  a  mere  emigrant, 
a  poor,  half-starved  wretch  crowded  out  of  dense  life 
in  Europe  to  seek  wider  pastures  farther  on,  not  a 
mere  wealth  getter  but  a  humble  disciple  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  secret  of  all  whose  wondrous  achievements 
lay  in  a  little  well-worn  book  which  he  called  Bible, 
who  could  pray  as  well  as  fight,  who  loved  justice  and 
righteousness,  who  could  surrender  everything  he 
held  dear  at  the  call  of  his  God,  such  has  been  the 
genus  Pioneer  of  the  United  States  ever  since  the 
Mayflower  dropped  anchor  in  Plymouth  harbor.  But 
where  was  this  strange  product  of  the  Reformation  to 
find  his  typical  incarnation  in  our  history?  God 
waited  for  him  until  1842  and  then  He  commanded 


6 


him  to  enter  the  world  of  achievement  in  the  person 
of  Marcus  Whitman.  Six  years  before  Fremont, 
“the  Pathfinder,’’  discovered  the  South  Pass,  the 
band  which  numbered  among  its  members  Dr.  and 
Mrs.  Whitman  and  Rev.  and  Mrs.  Spalding,  two 
bridal  couples  on  their  honeymoon,  wound  its  way 
steadily  up  that  Pass  to  the  summit  of  the  divide 
between  the  Pacific  and  the  Atlantic  oceans  and  there 
under  the  folds  of  the  flag  of  the  free  and  to  the  music 
of  scripture  and  prayer  dedicated  the  beautiful  West- 
land  to  God  and  to  liberty.  It  was  a  solemn  service 
pregnant  with  meaning  for  the  future  of  that  far  North¬ 
west  We  have  no  time  to  sketch  the  long  journey 
of  more  than  four  months  across  prairie  and  scorching 
plains  of  saleratus  dust,  over  rushing  rivers,  up  steep 
mountain  sides  and  among  hostile  tribes  of  Indians. 
It  is  enough  to  know  that  in  1836  it  took  as  much 
courage  to  go  overland  to  Oregon  as  it  did  in  1620  to 
leave  Holland  for  New  England. 

*  Some  future  historian  in  the  25th  or  30th  century 

will  point  out  the  fact  that  the  story  of  the  United 
States  has  been  pre-eminently  one  of  missions.  Back 
in  the  earliest  times  our  forefathers  believed  them¬ 
selves  God-sent  for  gospel  purposes.  In  less  than 
fifteen  years  after  the  landing  at  Plymouth  we  find 
John  Eliot  at  work  for  his  Redmen.  The  Harvard  col¬ 
lege  charter  of  1650  states  as  the  object  of  that  insti¬ 
tution  “the  education  of  the  English  and  Indian 


7 


youth  of  this  country  in  knowledge  and  godliness.” 
The  narratives  of  the  work  done  by  heroic  men  and 
women  in  evangelizing  the  savage  tribes  of  the  United 
States  are  not  surpassed  in  thrilling  interest  by  any 
other  chapter  in  church  history.  The  birth  of  the 
American  Board  and  the  other  great  missionary 
agencies  followed  as  a  matter  of  course  from  that  first 
conception  of  the  destiny  of  Americans  to  be  pro- 
claimers  of  the  good  tidings  of  Jesus  Christ  to  ignorant 
sinful  heathen.  The  absolute  interdependence  of  the 
highest  patriotism  and  the  intensest  love  for  other 
peoples  prompting  to  their  evangelization  has  been  the 
message  of  our  nation  to  the  world  throughout  our  whole 
career.  Christians  sometimes  say,  “I  believe  in 
Home  Missions  but  not  in  Foreign,”  or  ‘‘I  believe  in 
Foreign  but  not  Home  Missions.”  Such  people  are 
only  half  Americans.  Now  Whitman  was  sent  by  the 
American  Board  as  a  foreign  missionary.  True,  his 
work  lay  in  what  was  then  known  as  Oregon  but  that 
was  outside  of  the  acknowledged  territory  of  the 
Republic.  He  added  to  our  Union  three  great  states. 
In  him  missionary  fervor  and  patriotism,  zeal  that 
sent  him  to  one  of  the  ends  of  the  world,  and  love  of 
country  as  unselfish  and  profound  as  ever  moved  a 
citizen  of  any  land  on  earth,  were  but  parts  of  his 
loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ.  His  career  showed  once  and 
for  all  that  Home  Missions  are  just  as  much  a  part  of 
Foreign  Missions  as  Foreign  are  of  Home.  They  are 


8 


chemical  elements  in  the  great  compound  of  Christian 
love :  separate  either  element  by  itself  and  the  com¬ 
pound  perishes.  In  the  state  capitol  of  Oregon  a 
queer  old  printing  press  is  sacredly  preserved.  It 
was  the  first  press  ever  used  in  the  district  of  Oregon, 
which  comprises  the  present  states  of  Oregon,  Wash¬ 
ington,  Idaho  and  parts  of  Montana  and  Wyoming. 
On  it  were  printed  portions  of  scripture  and  hymn 
books  in  the  Nez  Perces  language  by  Whitman’s 
associates.  It  was  the  heralder  of  the  millions  upon 
millions  of  books  and  newspapers  that  have  gone  and 
are  still  to  issue  from  that  vast  territory.  Where  did 
it  come  from?  In  1819  the  machine  took  ship  in 
Boston,  journeyed  round  Cape  Horn  and  finally  landed 
in  Plawaii  where  for  twenty  years  it  helped  tell  the 
story  of  Christ  in  the  language  of  the  Kanakas.  But 
the  Pacific  Islanders  had  outgrown  the  tiny  press  and 
in  1839  the  First  Native  Church  of  Honolulu  pre¬ 
sented  it  to  the  great  region  of  Oregon.  Next 
month  the  senators  and  representatives  of  those  three 
noble  states  will  meet  in  Washington  and,  let  us^trust, 
will  help  welcome  little  Hawaii  into  the  Union  as  a  gal¬ 
lant  return  for  the  gift  made  so  generously  fifty-eight 
years  ago.  Thus  wondrously  doth  God  weave  His 
web  of  humankind  to  the  music  of  His  song  “  No  man 
liveth  unto  himself.”  Thus  doth  He  lead  the  people 
of  this  great  Republic  to  be  true  to  its  mission,  to  give 
the  gospel  to  the  world,  and  on  this  day  He  doth  turn 


9 


the  mind  of  the  nation  to  the  hero  who  more  than  any 
other  prominent  American  citizen  proclaimed  by  his 
life  the  basal  truth  for  which  our  Republic  stands, 
that  the  greatest  of  all  shall  be  servant  of  all. 

When  Dr.  Whitman  mounted  his  horse  for  his 
ride  of  4000  miles  he  remarked  “If  the  Board  dis¬ 
misses  me,  I  will  do  what  I  can  to  save  Oregon  to  the 
country.  My  life  is  of  but  little  worth  if  I  can  save 
this  country  to  the  American  people.”  His  fellow 
missionaries  at  first  opposed  his  leaving  his  mission 
field  for  patriotic  purposes.  His  answer  was  “  I  am 
not  expatriated  by  becoming  a  missionary.”  This 
was  the  spirit  which  animated  him.  Unlike  Wash¬ 
ington,  Dr.  Whitman  was  born  poor  and  died  poor. 
Unlike  Uincoln  he  aspired  to  no  office,  sought  no 
political  position  and  gained  none.  What  he  did  he 
did  out  of  the  purest  love  for  his  country,  seeking  no 
reward  and  never  for  a  moment  thinking  of  one.  I 
do  not  know  of  greater  disinterestedness  in  our  history. 
He  saw  a  vast  opportunity  for  his  nation,  he  quietly 
resolved  to  persuade  his  countrymen  to  sieze  it,  he 
gave  up  his  chosen  work  for  that  purpose  with  the 
probability  of  discharge  for  neglect  of  duty,  he  braved 
the  opprobrium  of  a  discredited  missionary,  he  held 
his  life  absolutely  cheap  for  his  country’s  sake,  with 
a  single  companion,  the  courageous  Do vejoy,  he  dared 
a  journey  which  no  one  had  ever  dared  before  and  no 
one  will  ever  attempt  again,  and  when  all  was  over  he 


IO 


went  simpl}'  back  to  his  humdrum  work  and  laid 
down  his  life  for  his  Master.  That  is  true  patriotism, 
beside  which  the  much  puffed  article  exhibited  by  our 
public  servants  today  is  rank  shoddy.  Marcus  Whit¬ 
man  was  above  all  things  a  patriot. 

Nay,  more,  he  was  a  hero.  Our  girl  elocutionists 
recite  Paul  Revere’s  ride  and  our  school  boy  orators 
declaim  Sheridan’s  Ride,  but  it  needs  a  greater  poet 
than  we  have  yet  produced  to  sing  the  heroism  of 
Whitman’s  ride  through  trackless  wilderness,  among 
fighting  savages  and  over  wintry  mountain  ranges, 
wandering  far  from  the  trail  in  the  terrible  cold,  left 
at  last  in  a  freezing  snow  storm  to  the  intelligence  of 
a  faithful  mule  on  whose  God-given  instinct  the  des¬ 
tinies  of  this  great  republic  hung  for  a  whole  day, 
plunging  boldly  into  the  icy  waters  of  the  fierce  Green 
river,  lost  all  alone  in  the  wilds  of  Colorado,  standing 
friendless,  clad  in  rough  skins  and  with  frost-bitten 
limbs  in  the  presence  of  the  nation’s  great  men  who 
scarce  believed  his  story,  commanding  by  his  noble 
personality  the  faith  of  Congress,  compelling  a  change 
in  the  diplomacy  of  the  two  greatest  governments  on 
earth,  proving,  what  England  had  for  decades  denied, 
the  possibility  of  an  overland  wagon  route  to  Oregon, 
focussing  the  eyes  of  his  countrymen  on  the  wondrous 
Northwest  with  its  exhaustless  resources,  animating 
them  with  such  glorious  enthusiasm  that  all  over  the 
land,  where  a  few  years  before  senators  had  been 


exclaiming  that  they  would  not  “give  a  pinch  of  snuff 
for  all  the  territory  beyond  the  Rockies,”  the  shout 
went  up  “Fifty-four  forty  or  fight,”  and  finally  lead¬ 
ing  to  the  grand  result  which  added  three  of  our  most 
splendid  states  to  the  Union.  A  true  hero  is  one  who 
endures  and  triumphs.  Marcus  Whitman  tried  by 
this  test  stands  second  to  no  hero  in  our  national 
existence. 

But  he  was  more  —  more  than  a  pioneer,  a  mis¬ 
sionary,  a  patriot  and  a  hero.  He  was  a  man  of  des¬ 
tiny.  God  had  a  purpose  for  this  land,  a  mighty  plan 
of  union.  Here  as  nowhere  on  earth  He  is  pleased  to 
prove  that  “all  ye  are  brethren.”  To  do 
that,  one  great  nation  speaking  one  noble  language 
must  stretch  from  north  to  south  from  east  to  west  in 
unbroken  continuity,  covering  the  part  of  North 
America  most  fertile  and  richest  in  the  materials  for 
producing  wealth.  Many  foes  were  to  menace  the 
success  of  His  plan.  First  the  French  with  their 
dilettante  language  and  their  subservience  to  abso 
lutism  in  politics  and  religion  essayed  the  task.  Tike 
a  great  black  cloud  they  hovered  to  the  north  till  the 
south  winds  drowned  them  in  the  Banks  of  Newfound¬ 
land.  But  still  athwart  the  very  center  of  the  conti¬ 
nent  from  New  Orleans  clear  up  across  the  Dakotas 
stretched  the  Gallic  province  of  Louisiana.  France 
well  knew  its  value.  She  never  would  have  relin¬ 
quished  it  if  in  God’s  time  the  dictator  Napoleon, 


12 


incarnation  of  selfishness,  had  not  arisen  to  power. 
One  nation,  only  one,  thwarted  the  ambition  of  le 
grand  Empereur  for  universal  rule  in  Europe.  That 
nation  was  Great  Britain.  In  a  moment  of  jealous 
fear  to  spite  Britain,  Napoleon  sold  to  the  United 
States  that  priceless  territory  and  made  possible  our 
American  Union. 

Next  England,  transcendent  England,  that  match¬ 
less  motherland  whom  to  know  is  to  love,  whose  future 
is  so  indissolubly  bound  with  ours  that  its  downfall 
would  mean  our  downfall,  England,  blinded  by  its 
money  getters,  ignorant  that  in  America’s  success  lay 
the  promise  of  her  own  coming  greatness,  laid  her 
hand  upon  our  boundlesss  West-land.  Had  she  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  holding  Oregon  the  Mexican  war  would 
have  given  California  to  British  America,  and  the 
Southern  Confederacy  assured  of  English  sympathy 
and  aid  would  have  split  our  union  into  two  miserable 
petty  nationalities,  the  scorn  of  all  ages  to  come.  By 
tacit  understanding  between  England  and  our  Repub¬ 
lic,  it  had  been  agreed  that  Oregon  should  go  to  the 
country  having  there  the  largest  number  of  settlers. 
The  one  aim  of  the  British  was  to  discourage  Ameri¬ 
can  colonists.  To  accomplish  this  every  device  was 
practised.  American  fur  companies  were  again  and 
again  driven  out  by  the  methods  of  the  English  Hud¬ 
son’s  Bay  Company.  Emigrants  reaching  Fort  Hall 
were  told  that  wagons  could  not  cross  the  mountains, 


13 


until  a  large  assortment  of  prairie  schooners  and  agri¬ 
cultural  implements,  abandoned  by  their  scared  owners, 
remained  at  the  Fort  to  enforce  the  assertion.  British 
periodicals  teemed  with  articles  decrying  Oregon  as 
a  desert.  So  persistent  were  these  efforts  that  the 
creed  of  every  American  statesman  came  to  contain 
the  article,  that  nothing  but  worthless  territory 
stretched  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Webster 
had  determined  to  trade  the  region  embracing  the 
three  states  of  Washington,  Idaho  and  Oregon,  whose 
taxable  property  today  aggregates  over  $500,000,000 
for  the  Newfoundland  fisheries.  In  1893  the  fisheries 
of  Washington  state  alone  yielded  over  $900,000.  The 
United  States  were  hopelessly  ignorant  of  Oregon  and 
Britain  was  slowly  sending  her  emigrants  there  to 
possess  the  land.  A  few  days  before  Whitman  set 
out  on  his  ride  he  saw  a  young  English  priest  throw 
up  his  hat  and  heard  him  shout  “Hurrah  for  Oregon 
— America  is  too  late,  we  have  got  the  country.”  He 
learned  that  tidings  had  just  arrived  that  140  English¬ 
men  and  Canadians  were  on  their  way  to  help  colonize 
for  England.  The  region  was  already  practically  lost 
to  us.  Now  why  do  we  call  Whitman  a  man  of  des¬ 
tiny  ?  An  American  fur  trader  frozen  out  by  the 
British,  met  Whitman’s  party  on  the  road  to  Oregon 
in  1836,  sized  up  its  character  and  remarked  to  a 
friend  “There  is  something  that  the  Honorable  Hudson 
Bay  Company  cannot  drive  out  of  Oregon.”  Whit- 


H 


man  went  in  God’s  name  with  God’s  commission  and 
he  was  inexpellable.  Again  possessed  by  a  strange 
freak  as  all  his  party  even  his  wife  thought,  but  moved 
as  we  now  know  by  God’s  loving  prevision  for 
America,  Whitman  at  the  expense  of  untold  hard 
wrork  and  danger  took  his  wagon  clear  into  Oregon. 
More  than  once  it  stuck  in  river  bottoms,  twice  in  one 
day  it  upset,  “It  was  a  wonder,”  writes  Mrs.  Whit¬ 
man,  “that  it  was  not  turning  somersaults  contin¬ 
ually;”  how  he  got  it  up  some  of  the  steep  places 
without  help  was  always  a  marvel  to  pioneers.  At 
Fort  Hall  the  English  captain  tried  every  conceivable 
means  to  get  him  to  abandon  it,  but  no,  on  to  Oregon 
it  went.  Seven  years  later,  when  Whitman  stood 
before  Webster,  the  great  statesman  clinched  his 
argument  with  a  majesterial  sweep  of  the  hand  as  he 
exclaimed,  “Oregon  is  shut  off  by  impassable  moun¬ 
tains  and  a  great  desert  which  make  a  wagon  road 
impossible.”  “Mr.  Secretary,”  answered  Whitman, 

‘  ‘  that  is  the  grand  mistake  that  has  been  made  by 
listening  to  the  enemies  of  American  interests  in 
Oregon.  Six  years  ago  I  was  told  there  was  no 
wagon  road  to  Oregon  and  it  was  impossible  to  take  a 
wagon  there,  and  yet  in  despite  of  pleadings  and  almost 
threats,  I  took  a  wagon  over  the  road,  and  have  it 
now.”  That  wagon  settled  Webster.  But  how  wrest 
Oregon  from  England  ?  By  a  larger  immigration  of 
course.  Whitman  and  Eovejoy  wTent  about  it  with  all 


15 


their  hearts.  One  thousand  men,  women  and  ehil* 
dren  with  two  hundred  wagons,  of  which  seventy-five 
wagons  proved  unequal  to  the  journey,  started  out. 
They  reached  Fort  Hall.  There  they  met  Capt. 
Grant.  The  doughty  Englishman  knew  that  if  those 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  wagons  reached  Oregon, 
America  would  win  the  day.  He  laid  himself  out  to 
convince  the  travelers  of  the  impossibility  of  cross¬ 
ing  the  mountains  with  wagons,  showed  them  his 
assortment  of  prairie  schooners  and  was  just  succeed¬ 
ing,  when  Whitman  exclaimed,  “Men,  I  have  guided 
you  thus  far  in  safety.  Believe  nothing  you  hear 
about  not  being  able  to  get  your  wagons  through.  I 
took  a  wagon  to  Oregon  six  years  ago.”  That  rickety 
old  wagon  again  carried  the  day.  They  pushed  on. 
The  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  wagons  reached 
Oregon.  The  thousand  settlers  flooded  the  states 
with  glowing  letters,  a  vast  tide  of  pioneers  pushed 
over  the  mountains,  the  whole  country  was  aroused, 
the  far  Northwest  was  saved  to  the  Republic  and  our 
Union  lives  today  in  unbroken  strength.  One  man, 
farseeing,  undaunted,  unselfish,  never  asking  one 
cent’s  reward  for  adding  three  hundred  thousand 
square  miles  to  his  country’s  domains  ;  one  mule, 
leading  three  lost  freezing  men  through  a  blinding 
blizzard  to  a  smouldering  camp  fire  in  the  shelter  of  a 
great  rock ;  one  wagon  toilfully  hauled  through  tor¬ 
rents,  over  quicksands  and  across  mountains — upon 


i6 


such  trifles  God  hinges  His  vast  purposes.  Verily 
He  chooseth  the  weak  things  of  this  world  to  confound 
the  mighty,  and  in  the  humblest  He  findeth  His  men 
of  destiny. 

After  the  stirring  episode  that  aroused  a  nation, 
Whitman  returned  to  his  chosen  field,  to  his  mission¬ 
ary  farm  and  saw  mill  where  he  taught  lazy  Indians 
to  work,  to  his  toilsome  labors  as  a  frontier  physician, 
and  to  the  slow  but  glorious  task  of  blazing  an  en¬ 
trance  into  darkened  heathen  souls  for  the  golden 
light  of  the  gospel.  But  he  was  a  marked  man. 
The  Jesuits  hated  him  because  he  was  a  Protestant,  the 
English  detested  him  because  he  had  won  America’s 
battle,  the  Indiansgrew  restive  both  because  he  wanted 
them  to  learn  to  work  and  because  he  brought  so 
many  settlers  into  their  hunting  grounds,  and  slowly 
these  forces  massing  their  power  marked  him  for  de¬ 
struction.  There  is  no  need  to  tell  you  the  story  of 
that  savage  scene  of  slaughter,  how  on  November  29, 
1847,  men  whom  he  had  befriended,  those  whom  his 
skill  had  called  back  to  life,  some  even  whom  he  had 
led  to  Christ  fell  upon  him  and  his  friends  and  wflth 
details  too  sickening  to  recount,  butchered  fourteen 
out  of  the  seventy  persons  in  his  generous  missionary 
home.  His  life  was  a  sacrifice  to  his  patriotism  and 
to  his  religion.  He  sealed  his  mission  with  a  martyr’s 
death. 

And  finally  there  were  two  of  them.  Martha 


J7 


Washington  we  regard  as  a  worthy  companion  of  our 
national  hero,  but  after  all  there  was  nothing  especi¬ 
ally  preeminent  in  her  life  and  character.  While 
Lincoln’s  wife  is  not  remembered  for  any  remarkable 
virtues.  But  whenever  Marcus  Whitman’s  name  is 
mentioned  Narcissa  Prentice  Whitman’s  is  implied. 
Her  life  was  a  beautiful  poem.  Lovely  in  person  and 
character,  owning  a  voice  of  matchless  sweetness, 
utterly  unselfish,  brave  as  only  a  true  woman  can  be, 
making  no  allusion  in  her  diary  to  the  terrors  and 
trials  of  that  long  trip  across  the  continent- -and  she  a 
bride — with  its  deadly  serpents,  fierce  insect  pests, 
parching  clouds  of  alkali  dust,  bloodthirsty  Indians, 
weary  stretches  of  mountain  and  desert,  thrilling 
escapes  from  drought  and  famine  and  flood,  she  stands 
forth  in  the  story  of  Whitman  as  an  American  Queen. 
Her  darling  companion,  the  only  child  whom  God 
had  given  them,  one  of  those  beautiful  angel  natures 
whom  even  the  Indian  devotedly  loved,  falls  into  the 
rushing  river  and  is  drowned.  “  Lord  !  it  is  right ;  it 
is  right.  She  is  not  mine,  but  thine;”  writes  this 
lonely  mother,  ‘‘she  was  only  lent  to  me  to  comfort  me 
for  a  little  season,  and  now,  dear  Savior,  Thou  hast 
the  best  right  to  her.  Thy  will,  not  mine,  be  done.” 
Bravely  she  bids  her  husband  good-bye  and  speeds 
him  on  his  long,  long  ride  with  her  smiling,  cheery 
farewell-face,  and  then  goes  into  her  house  to  take  up  her 
humdrum  work  of  heroism  without  a  murmur.  Let- 


i8 


ters  reached  Oregon  in  those  days  in  two  years  time. 
Not  a  word,  not  a  rumor  breaks  the  stillness  of  those 
weary  twelve  months.  The  first  tidings  of  her  husband 
come  with  the  beat  of  the  horse’s  hoofs  that  bring  her 
good  man  home  again.  Her  motherly  heart  opens  to 
take  in  eleven  helpless  children,  left  fatherless  and 
motherless  in  that  far  off  wdlderness.  She  writes  in 
her  diary,  “We  have  no  less  than  seven  families  in 
our  twTo  houses ;  we  are  in  peculiar  and  somewhat 
trying  circumstances  ;  we  cannot  sell  to  them  because 
we  are  missionaries  and  not  traders.’’  With  her 
household  of  seventy  persons  she  knows  the  full  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  Bible  injunction  “  Forget  not  to  show  love 
unto  strangers :  for  thereby  some  have  entertained 
angels  unawares” — only  we  don’t  hear  of  many  angels 
in  Oregon  those  days.  Wherever  she  goes  she  shines 
a  perpetual  sunbeam.  When  the  tomahaw7k  ends  her 
loved  one’s  life,  brave  and  true  she  stands  to  receive 
the  fatal  bullets  of  the  cowardly  assassins,  and  breath¬ 
ing  a  prayer  for  the  orphaned  children  to  w'hotn  she 
had  been  so  faithful  a  mother,  her  soul  goes  forth  to 
join  the  spirit  of  her  husband.  “  Lovely  and  pleasant 
in  their  lives,  in  their  death  they  were  not  divided.” 

What  shall  we  Americans  do  to  honor  this 
hero  and  heroine,  to  repay  them  for  their  gift  of 
three  hundred  thousand  square  miles  and  for  the 
priceless  legacy  of  such  noble  living  ?  Years  after 
the  martyrdom  of  1847,  Dr.  Cushing  Kells  stood  by 


19 


the  deserted  grave  near  Walla  Walla  and  vowed  to 
erect  a  monument  to  his  friends  Marcus  and  Narcissa 
Whitman.  No  stone  graven  by  art  and  man’s  device, 
no  stately  column  but  a  living,  regnant  institution 
alone  could  commemorate  lives  so  brave  and  strong. 
Mr.  Eells  founded  Whitman  college  and  then  America 
witnessed  a  friend’s  devotion  as  rare  as  it  was  touching. 
For  thirty-four  years  he  went  up  and  down  the  land 
„  telling  his  thrilling  story  of  Whitman’s  ride  and  beg¬ 
ging  his  mite  for  Whitman  College.  He  passed — the 
memorial  seemed  doomed  when  at  last  the  country 
began  to  awake.  If  a  gift  of  ^800  and  a  few  books 
could  make  Harvard  University,  if  a  merchant’s 
generosity  could  start  into  full  existence  a  Yale,  what 
may  not  two  such  heroic  lives  do  for  the  Whitman 
College  of  the  future  ?  If  ideals  rule  the  world  of  let¬ 
ters,  that  humble  school  on  the  banks  of  the  Walla 
Walla  River,  born  out  of  heroism,  friendship  and  the 
gratitude  of  the  greatest  Republic  of  all  time,  must 
some  day  dwarf  all  our  other  royal  institutions  of 
learning.  Rich  in  the  memory  of  coming  generations 
will  be  the  men  and  the  women  whose  self  denial  and 
generosity  shall  help  make  Whitman  college  what  it 
should  be — a  worthy  memorial  of  the  twin  souls  that 
dared  and  suffered  and  did  and  died  for  God  and  their 
native  land. 


